


Dripping From My Lips

by Mogseltof



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Bad Science, Body Horror, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-16
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-06-11 08:15:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15311271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mogseltof/pseuds/Mogseltof
Summary: Infatuation is a dangerous curse, no matter the form it takes, and overthinking yourself can be lethal





	Dripping From My Lips

**Author's Note:**

> anonymous asked:
> 
> How about Hanahaki Disease with Prowl/Jazz or another OTP?

The first flower, when he hacked it up, lay limply in his hand. It was silver and purple, and soaked with coolant, and Prowl examined it briefly before disposing of it. It had probably gotten caught in something on a recent drive, nothing to worry about, there was plenty of disconcerting organic matter and it got everywhere.

The second time, he stared at it a little longer. It didn’t look familiar, and he hadn’t left the base in between the last time -- so how had it...?

The third time, Prowl felt it in his throat coming up from where his vocal receivers acted, and this time he frowned, and went to Ratchet. 

“Hmm,” said Ratchet, prodding at the flower with a probe transformed out of one finger. “You said it came from inside you?”

“This is the third time,” said Prowl with a nod. “If I’ve somehow inhaled a bush, I want it out.”

“Open the plating around your throat,” said Ratchet brusquely, picking up a scanner. Prowl obliged, tilting his head back and staying still as Ratchet ran the scanner down the length of his throat. “Move your chest plates,” instructed Ratchet after a moment, and Prowl did so, frowning at him. 

Ratchet plugged a pair of sensory cables into the main array in Prowl’s chest and hummed again, putting the scanner down. “Well, you haven’t inhaled a bush,” he said bluntly, “but it’s not a healthy prognosis either. Surely you’re aware of the consequences of repressing and rerouting emotional processes and the damage that can cause?”

“I’m aware,” said Prowl, re-shifting his chest and throat plates closed so he felt less exposed. “Suppressing it from the main processor can… reroute it through the sub-processor lines internal to the main array and spark chamber.”

Ratchet tapped a probe on Prowl’s chest plate. “Exactly. It’s how an otherwise healthy mech can die of spark ache, and we’re few enough without losing someone as important as you to something so, so classically tragic. Sort out your interpersonal subroutines, Prowl. Medic’s orders. Whoever you’re putting off dealing with, you’re going to have to get it over with, and sooner rather than later. You’re overloading your sub-processors and the excess charge is breaching your fuel lines causing these substrate growths that you’re coughing up, and they’re starting to branch.”

Interpersonal? Prowl didn’t currently have any issues with anyone on the base -- he could admit that his expectations were high, but that usually meant other people had issues with him, not the other way around. Unless…

Interpersonal didn’t mean it had to be someone he was irrationally frustrated or angry with. Prowl stood abruptly and nodded at Ratchet, leaving the medbay and starting the route back to his quarters without a word.    


Emotional subroutines --  _ Primus _ . There was only one interpersonal issue he had that was ridiculous enough to be rerouted to his sub-processors instead of him working through it directly and he’d been rerouting it for so many human months he hadn’t kept track. 

The door to his room slid shut behind him, and Prowl rubbed at his helm with one hand. If Ratchet was right, it was time to stop letting his automatic processes deal with Jazz -- they simply couldn’t handle the data load anymore. Prowl was well aware that his… infatuation wasn’t just ridiculous, it was wholly inappropriate, and he’d hoped that by continuously running it on the backend it would eventually peter out as he processed it and it came to an end. 

Died of spark ache. 

Prowl hesitated, then rerouted the subroutine he’d put in place back to his main processor. It hit him like a flood, the information unmooring him from the detached position he’d maintained and sweeping him up. His knees buckled, and Prowl only realised he was falling when he hit the floor. Gears ground in his throat with an unholy retching noise, and Prowl spat out a cluster of the strange, silver veined petal shapes with a rush of coolant, his mouth tasting like burnt electrical wire. 

His memory banks, finally freed from background processing, played him a clip of Jazz’s seamless transformation sequence to the sleek Earth vehicle that was his alt-mode, lingering on every shifting panel and gear, and Prowl retched again, and again, more petals hitting the floor in front of him. 

Ratchet was right. He’d let this carry on far too long. Prowl forced himself to his feet and hit the comm button next to his door, opening a private line direct to Jazz. “Jazz. Meet me in my quarters. Soon as you can, if possible,” he forced himself to get out, keeping it as short as possible so as not to bely the burnt undercurrent in his voice. 

He received a text commline from Jazz a few seconds later.  _ 15 minutes out, boss. I’ll be there. _

Fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes and then one way or another this whole mess would be resolved, and either way, he’d stop vomiting scraps of metal created by his own malfunctioning systems. He sank down back against the wall again, coolant rising in his throat. 

Jazz could be so casually intimate with those around him, but Prowl was careful, more contained. Restrained. He kept the fluctuations in his EM field close to himself, whereas Jazz wore his emotions on his sleeve, bared to the people around him, especially those close to him. Something Prowl, just couldn’t claim. 

His body was racked with vomiting again, and this time Prowl could feel the charge lancing through his main array, and a deep, piercing ache in his spark chamber itself. Several of the flowers fell from his mouth, and Prowl swiped at the drips of coolant on his lips, trying to ignore the pounding pain behind his chest plate. Less than fifteen minutes and he’d know one way or another, there was no  _ point _ in trying to puzzle this out before Jazz arrived --

The cooling fans in his chest cycled to maximum, as his processors worked harder on figuring it out. Jazz had never been so openly, casually, affectionate towards him as he was to others on the base, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything, and Prowl had less than fifteen minutes to assess the situation and decide on the action he was going to take before Jazz showed up and the hwole point became moot --

Less than ten minutes. 

Prowl braced himself against the floor again as coolant dripped from his lips, more petals forcing their way through his mouth in a painful surge. He had to stop thinking about it, he had to stop trying to analysing it, but he couldn’t --

The first, spindly branch shot through up through his throat and out of his mouth, flowers already sprouting from the end. The second edged through the cracks in his chestplate, and Prowl could feel a squeezing sensation deep in his chest. 

His field of vision was going black around the corners, like something was wrong with his optics, but his systems alerts were pinging breaches to his main array in his chest, and Prowl gasped with pain, another branch erupting from his chest in a shower of petals. He toppled forwards, the wiring that connected his main array to his sensory nerves fraying and severing in a spray of sparks as his optics offlined completely, his auditory processing fading and crackling to static. 

Prowl could barely make out the sound of his unlocked door sliding open, Jazz’s light footsteps entering, then a yell of alarm, as another branch forced its way out of his mouth, and then, everything he knew went dark, final alarms of his systems fading as his main fuel line ruptured. The last thing he knew was the barest sensation of being jerked upwards, and then everything shut off, the squeezing pressure in his chest, around his  _ spark _ , finally relenting to the cold embrace of death. 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [And With My Dying Breath I Curse You, Love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17440088) by [Mogseltof](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mogseltof/pseuds/Mogseltof)




End file.
